Masterpiece Theatre redux

OK, I'm not Alistair Cooke, nor is this theatre, unless you include set design.  But visualize me sitting in this lovely Pier One chair, reading a classic, and then placing the book on this elegant side table.

The chair, which my spouse has been craving for weeks, since she changed out the colors of the bedroom, came home in the back seat of the Volvo convertible earlier this week, which then begged the need for an appropriate height table.

Being the consummate penny pincher that I am, I suggested we not buy retail, but to check out thrift and consignment shops.  Sarasota has quite a few along Fruitville Road.  I am proud to say "I found it" and she liked it, so she bought it for $59.  A side trip to Lowes for some Olde English Scratch Cover stain and cheese cloth, and after church today the project was completed.  She did a fine job, and we end up with a quality wood product which didn't come in a box, and won't fall apart the first time we try to move it.  To quote another famous Englishman, Colonel Hannibal Smith, "I love it when a plan comes together".

Well, forget that visual of me reading an actual book, and the closest I'll come to the late KBE (Knight of the British Empire) journalist was my time as a military journalist and broadcaster.  If we ever did classics, they were the Classics Illustrated comics.

What's important is that my wife now has her chair, and a table, and has seriously rebuffed my idea of placing Corvette models under the display glass.  All that's missing now on that table is a good book.
Feel free to suggest an appropriate author with a book jacket cover that complements that fabric, if you can.  I'll work on the lighting, and the sound.  Ripley will work on, or become, the new seat cover.

Statistical Dig - How many were there?

This is the sign marking a nest

The sign is how it all started - a turtle watch volunteer saw evidence that a several hundred pound turtle crawled up near the dunes and laid her eggs.  Average loggerhead turtles bury between eighty and 120 eggs.  The volunteers "mark" the nest, and watch for signs of hatchlings.  This happened several days ago, so tonight the post-operation evaluation was scheduled.

They publish information by the Turtle Watch people (volunteers), and tonight a very large crowd turned out to witness this procedure.  It starts with a careful excavation of the nest, which had been marked several months earlier.  This time the volunteers will log next depth, how large the chamber was at the bottom (think of a chemistry beaker round at the bottom), and how many hatched eggs are found.  The baby turtles (whose tracks were spotted by early morning "watchers") are gone - well, all but one live survivor - and now its time to record the statistics.  That one lone survivor, who apparently missed the voting and was still on the island, will go to Mote Marine for rehab,  to strengthen his little flippers and be given a ride out to the seaweed beds his brothers and sisters were headed for a few nights earlier.   Oh, from the count about 77 got out of the nest and went toward the moonlight on the water.  Another nine eggs, which resemble rubbery pingpong balls, never fertilized and were intact, as opposed to those shown below.

empty shells